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by Elesariin
Summary: What happens when lines are blurred? Abstraction sounds better than chaos, confusion sounds better than madness, and no one wants to hear the truth when it sounds like the word collapse. Crossover.
1. Impostor

(If I owned anything, I wouldn't be posting on this site.)

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_Chapter 1: Impostor_

Norman Osborn still couldn't get over the delicious irony of the situation, couldn't help savoring it, though he was careful to keep most of his attention on the window where his team's target was supposed to appear. He was being paid _by the government_ to take down the person at the top of his hit list; how much richer could things possibly get? Still, if there was one thing Norman knew from personal experience, it was not to get cocky, no matter how perfect the setup seemed. No celebrating until his adversary was unconscious. Then… frankly, Norman fully intended to celebrate all over the idiot's masked face, orders or no orders.

And speaking of orders…

As was expected, they were hearing their target before they could see him. He was singing loudly, though it took a few seconds for him to get close enough for Norman to make out the words."….Sling us a web tonight! 'Cause we're all in the mood for a hero now, and there's evildoers to--" Abruptly, the singing stopped, and Norman tensed. Not a good sign. After a few seconds of complete silence, he looked over to see Moonstone roll her eyes, eliciting a rumbling chuckle from Venom. Norman scowled. Not that he didn't understand where they were coming from; this whole thing was getting ridiculous. How many times were they going to have to--

"Now let's see," came a dry voice from somewhere overhead, "Four… five….Oh, but Venom's with you. Nope, I'm sorry; I simply don't have enough candy for all of you. " Norman looked upward, leering his famous leer. No sign of the speaker, but that didn't really matter, anyway. "It's probably not in good taste, _me _making Halloween jokes, but the dude in the green mask trumps every costume I've ever seen. If you don't mind me asking, where exactly do you buy your clothes? I have to have all my sewing done by hand, so…"

"As always, we fail to understand how you can find yourself so amusing, Webs," snarled Venom, reaching out with a glistening black tentacle and pulling himself up into the rafters. The remaining Thunderbolts spread themselves out and waited, as per Norman's instructions.

"Woah!" cried the still-invisible quipster, "That was a complete sentence! Have you been taking classes online or something? I'm impressed!"

Norman's smile faded. As far as he knew, Venom had always spoken in complete sentences, so how did that work as a joke, exactly? After a few seconds he gave a mental shrug. "You've made some important people very upset, Spider-man," he said, his voice considerably more gleeful than he actually felt. Something about that joke had made him feel jittery. "Astonishingly stupid as always."

"That's me," came the distracted reply, "Oof! …Not cool. Did you not hear me say that I have to do my sewing by hand?" A second later, there was a crash overhead, and Norman hastily back-flipped to get out of the way as Venom came crashing back to the ground. Growling and covered with powdered cement, Venom got up and launched himself back into the rafters.

"I think I'm supposed to say something about coming quietly and saving yourself considerable suffering, " said Norman offhandedly, trying not to think about how much he wanted to get up there and help Venom put his nemesis in a body bag. _Stick with the plan. The plan is good. Plus, if you kill him, no more beating up superheroes and getting paid for it._ True enough. He gave Moonstone a slight nod, and she smiled darkly, then faded out of sight, reminding him vaguely of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. "But in view of our history," he continued, "I'm just not going to bother pretending like I don't want to watch you get beaten to a bloody pulp."

"History?" called an honestly surprised, out of breath voice, "Are you one of those fruit loops on a 'Spider-man is my arch-nemesis ' trip? Honestly, just go talk to Craven the Hunter and ask him how that turns out. "

Norman frowned as that odd nervousness came back twofold. Spider-man didn't know who he was? How was that even… "The anniversary of your embarrassing little Gwen slip up was last week, wasn't it?" he asked, testing the waters. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his entire team flinch. Spidey did nasty things when people brought up Gwen, and that counted double when Norman did it, for obvious reasons.

"WHAT?" The expected rage, guilt, and grief were easy to hear, but what rang out clearest of all was utter shock. "I don't—How did—WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Norman opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been at a loss for words, but the fact that Spider-man, whom he'd spent the last fifteen years trying to kill, recruit, or drive insane, had no idea who he was made him feel almost… insubstantial. But that was preposterous. He was Norman Osborn, and he was the Green Goblin. He was brilliant, and he was feared. "If you really don't know," he said, keeping his voice light with a colossal effort of will, "I think it's only fair that I let you figure things out for yourself."

"Right," said Spider-man tightly, anger bubbling just below the surface of his voice, "I'll come down there and ask you again as soon as I'm done with—" A loud crashing sound interrupted him, and several thick wooden beams plummeted to the ground. "JESUS, la—"

There was another loud crash, and Venom fell back to earth once again, but this time he landed feet first, and this time he had a certain Friendly Neighborhood Someone pinned underneath him. Norman gestured to Songbird. The woman hesitated. "My dear…" Norman said, his voice gently chiding but simultaneously menacing and cold. She was wasting time; any second now he was going to get up and… She was shaking her head, her eyes wide.

Norman followed her gaze, and blinked. "He's too short."

There was a cough from underneath Venom's bulk. "Well, you're too ugly, but you don't hear me—" Norman made an impatient sound in the back of his throat and threw one of his smaller pumpkin bombs, which released thick green gas around Venom's feet. "Complain…ing…"

Venom growled as he moved away from the limp body of his adversary. "Was that necessary? Just because we won't get knocked out—"

"Shut up," Norman snapped, "That was too easy. This isn't Spider-man."

Moonstone drifted back down gently as a feather, her expression smug to the extreme. "Well, that's unfortunate," she said.

"We could have told you that," growled Venom, "We knew since he arrived that he had never been bonded with us."

"And you didn't think of mentioning it?" Norman asked testily.

"We didn't think it mattered," Venom replied, shrugging. "He is Spider-man, or something very close; he has the same abilities, as far as we can tell."

"So what?" snarled Norman, "Chameleon can pull that much off."

"Chameleon would have gotten the height right," Venom said, his voice bored. "Are you going to throw a temper tantrum? We have other things we could be doing."

"He's just a kid," Songbird murmured, her eyes still on the motionless figure. "He's so skinny…"

"Maybe we could just turn him in and pretend like he's the real one," The Swordsman said thoughtfully, "I doubt that anyone would—"

"Until the real one shows up," Norman said harshly.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, in which they all stared down at the slender kid in the Spider-man costume. "So…" Songbird began slowly, "What do we do?"

At that exact moment, there was some movement, almost a ripple in the air, and the kid they were all staring at vanished. There was no flash of light, nothing to suggest a trick; he was there one second, and the next he just… wasn't.

Before anyone could move or make a sound, another voice spoke. From the window. "Weird. I could've sworn I already came in here." They all spun around to see Spider-man crouched on the windowsill, but this one was obviously taller, and his muscles had more bulk. "You guys ever get de'ja vu?"


	2. Johnny Makes a New Friend

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C_hapter 2: Johnny Makes a New Friend_

"…So they all just stare at him for a second, and then Osborn turns and looks at Venom—"

Logan gritted his teeth, "You told me this part already."

Johnny Storm flashed his companion a perfect grin and leaned back in his chair. "Well, it's good! Anyway, Osborn looks at Venom and says in this weird, paranoid kind of voice, 'He's not real. Mysterio is screwing with us. He's hiding that kid here somewhere!' And he just drops down and starts feeling around in this gigantic crater in the middle of the floor. Doesn't give Spidey a second glance."

"Yeah. I heard you the first two times you said it," Logan grumbled.

Johnny rolled his eyes as he took a long sip from his coffee mug. "See, that's the problem with you, Logan; you have no sense of the art that is storytelling. If something is weird enough, you can't repeat it too many times."

"Art my ass," Logan said, "Hell with Goblin. What did the rest of them do?"

Johnny took his time with another gulp of hot liquid before answering. "Apparently, most of them just sort of stood there looking dumb, but Venom tackled Spidey right away and knocked him back out the window. They fought all down 7th, and that's when I stepped in." He looked smug. "All I had to do was say hi, and Venom was out of there."

Logan smiled without humor. "And what are you planning on telling the people who hired him, Bub? Interfering with an arrest is serious. "

Johnny winced. "I was trying not to think about that, actually. Thanks a lot."

Grinning outright, Logan took a sip of his own coffee. "Reality check. Least I can do, since you're buying."

"They can't get mad at me for saying 'hello,' anyway," Johnny added defensively, glaring at Logan, "That's not a crime. I didn't even threaten him! Didn't have to."

"Of course you didn't," Logan agreed calmly, "And the good, kind, reasonable people who'll be coming to question you will definitely understand that."

Johnny put his mug back on the table with a little more force than was absolutely necessary, but before he could retort a pretty waitress interrupted to ask if anyone wanted more coffee. He opened his mouth to say 'yes'…

The word froze in his mouth as his eyes focused on something behind her. "Uh," was all that came out. Logan took one look at the other man's face and tensed. A second later, silvery claws shot out from between his knuckles. The waitress stumbled backward at the sight of them, then turned and hurried back into the indoor portion of the café. "What," Johnny managed finally, "Is that?"

"Don't care," snarled Logan.

"But it looks like—"

"It isn't, and I'm going to go kill it. Stay and finish your coffee if you want." Logan got to his feet and stalked towards the creature on the sidewalk, his stride measured, like he was looking at something he'd seen before on countless occasions. Of course, everyone had, at least in the movies.

Johnny wanted to get up and follow Logan, but his feet seemed to be stuck to the ground. He wanted to look away, but couldn't help taking in every gory detail with a kind of morbid fascination: the tattered, faded, weathered suit of blue and red; the perpetual grin that showed through the tear in the lower part of that all-too-familiar mask; the glazed eye that stared out from one shattered white lens, an eye that glowed with an eerie, pale blue light. "Zombie," he said, and his voice sounded almost casual, "That's a zombie in a Spider-man costume." How did a person get their head around something like that?

The creature was just staring around. Johnny's impressions were not really reliable at that point, but it struck him that the freaking zombie might be at a bit of a loss. This hypothesis was all but confirmed when he heard it say, "I've got to be hallucinating. Decaying brains are bound to start doing trippy things sooner or later, right?" The voice was gurgling and distorted, but there was something eerily familiar about the inflections.

"Sorry to interrupt your conversation with yourself, Bub," Logan growled, "But I've got coffee to finish, so I've gotta make this fast."

The zombie turned to face him. "Logan? No… you're not real, because the real you is… " It paused. "But you're alive…" Its voice was no longer vague or uncertain; it was driven, almost...

_Hungry!_ "Logan, get away!" Johnny yelled, horrified out of his stupor, "Flame On!" But even as he took off Logan started charging, and the creature was stretching its arm out towards its attacker, boney palm out. Then, with horrible suddenness, Logan jerked to a halt in mid-step, glowing the same chilling blue as those dead eyes, and the zombie leapt forward, its terrible grin opening up into something more terrible still as it went.

Then a large, flaming wooden table crashed into it from above.

"Yesss!" Johnny punched the air. "I am officially awesome. Not that I wasn't before. Hey, Logan, did—" For the second time in so many minutes, the words died in his throat. Logan was still motionless, his features frozen in a feral snarl. Johnny turned slowly to look back at the zombie. It was standing up, looking unhurt, or at least no more hurt than it had before. And it was staring at him. "Hiya," Johnny said somewhat lamely.

"Hello, imaginary Johnny," the zombie replied politely.

"Um, look… guy… Could you please not eat Logan?"

The zombie shrugged. "Okay. It's not like he can move, anyway. I can come back and get him later, if that makes you feel better. Besides, I'd rather eat something else."

Johnny frowned. "And what would…" He noticed the intensity in the creature's gaze as it studied his face, and he blanched. "Uh, no. No, actually, that doesn't make me feel better at all."

Zombie-man crouched, and Johnny shivered; the movement was weirdly similar to the motions he was used to seeing from the real Spider-man. "Then you'd better start flying away."

Johnny smiled a cocky, if slightly strained, smile. "Yeah, right. Even if you can catch me, I'd like to see you try to bite me." Actually, he wasn't sure that a zombie would care about getting burned, which was why he had thrown the table at it rather than flying over and setting it on fire directly.

Zombie-man leaped up, performed a graceful somersault, and stuck to the wall of the café. Johnny suddenly noticed that it was missing its right leg below the knee, and it had been replaced something shining and metallic. What the hell was going on? The creature didn't give him time to dwell on it. "Imaginary Johnny, I was giving you a chance. Is it possible that you're even dumber than the real one? That would be sad, because he's literally brain-dead."

Johnny tried not to think about what that could mean, which proved to be easier than he would have thought, because at that exact moment his flame turned off. Before he could yell, it turned back on, and then cut out again after a split second, allowing him to fall the last ten feet to the ground. He groaned and pulled himself to his feet, only to be knocked down again as a certain zombie slammed into him. The smell of it was overpowering, and before he knew it he'd emptied his stomach of coffee.

The creature crouched on his chest wiped the liquid from its face with a skeletal hand. "Johnny," it said with mock revulsion, "That was disgusting!" Then it leaned forward, and its mouth opened wider; Johnny thought he saw mold.

"Flame On!" he yelled, "Flame OnFlameOnflameonflameGOD DAMN IT TURN ON!" With that last one, he felt the familiar fire inside him sputter weakly, and he wasted no time in calling it out. The flames leapt up eagerly, and Zombie-man flinched back. The fire already dying out again, so Johnny pushed at his off-balance attacker, rolled out from beneath him, and took off running like a bat out of hell.

"I could have sworn I turned that off!" Zombie-man mused from behind him.

"Yeah," Johnny yelled back breathlessly, "Not sure how I managed that. Come to think of it, not sure how you managed to turn it off in the first place."

"Actually," said Zombie-man from directly above him, "That part's pretty cool." Johnny flinched and made a quick turn. He had to get away from all of the buildings if he wanted to loose the freak. Like that was going to happen; he was in the middle of Manhattan. "I happened to partake of several individuals who had certain abilities."

"Really?" Johnny asked, making another random turn.

"Yeah. They showed up to eat the planet, and we ate them. Pretty hilarious. "

That wouldn't have sounded good even if it hadn't sounded so familiar. As it was… "Well I don't think that's very fair. You're a zombie, _and_ you have cosmic powers? Stop mixing genres!"

"Believe me, if I could get rid of the zombie one, I would." With that, Johnny was knocked flat on his face and pinned against the ground once more. He retched at the renewed smell of decaying flesh. "But I can't." Hot, rancid breath blew out onto his neck, and he squeezed his eyes shut_. Damn, what a dumb way to die!_

There was a strange wind without any sort of sound, and the next second the weight holding him down was no more. Johnny blinked, then scrambled to his feet, looking around. The creature was nowhere to be seen. He opened his mouth to call out for it, and then snapped it shut. _Yeah, good idea. Ask it to come back and play some more, why don't you?_ Without further ado, he turned and started back toward the café. Very quickly.

When he got there, Logan was back at their table, sipping his coffee. As Johnny all but fell into the seat, Logan raised his eyebrows. "You look like hell."

"Thank you," Johnny said, but his sarcasm didn't have much heat. He realized suddenly that he was shaking and made an enormous effort to stop, but there was no way to get rid of the queasiness still churning in his stomach. "What was that?" he asked finally.

"Don't know, don't care," Logan replied flatly.

"You _still_ don't care? It tried to eat you, and, more importantly, it almost did eat me—twice!"

"If enough weird shit happens around you, you just stop caring why. "

"It turned off my powers!"

"Really?" Logan took another sip of coffee. "That sucks."

Johnny glared helplessly at him for a few seconds, then got to his feet again. "If anyone wants to get in touch with me for the next week, I'll be in the shower."

"I thought you were paying."

Johnny made a rude gesture. "Flame on," he growled, and took off, leaving a sheet of angrily roiling flame in his wake.


	3. The Unknown Other

((Okay, children. I know that you are reading this, because of my handy dandy measurer of all things reader traffic, which I discovered last night. So, my readers, I'm afraid I must discuss a problem I have discovered. The truth is, I am a rather insecure, neurotic sort of writer who needs constant reassurance and input to be sure that I am not wasting my readers' time. If I don't receive reviews, I become extremely agitated and and eventually forget basic rules of grammar and spelling. But there is a way out! Simply leave me reviews, positive or negative, and all will be well. Thank you. I will now return you to your regularly scheduled insanity.))

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_Chapter 3: The Unknown Other_

"….Peter! Peter, come on." Mary Jane's voice was soft, and yet it somehow managed to deafen him. Why couldn't she leave him alone? She knew how little sleep he got. "Peter please!" Suddenly aware of the desperate worry in her voice, Peter forgot his annoyance and tried to jerk himself into complete wakefulness; a strange, echoing alarm bell trilled through his numb brain when he didn't succeed. When had he gone to sleep, anyway? Hadn't he been racing Johnny?

He felt slender fingers lightly brush the hair away from his forehead, but at the same time he didn't, almost like he was feeling someone else being caressed; the sensation was so far away, barely connected to him at all. "Wake up," she whispered.

_I can't…_ he thought thickly. _Give me a minute, MJ; I'll try again in a minute…_

"Peter Parker, if you don't wake up right now, I am going to call your aunt and tell her that you're unconscious!" she grated out.

_Ack! No! Don't! _She took a deep, shuddering breath. The next thing he heard was the telltale pressing of the buttons on her cell phone. _MJ! N—_"Nnnnn…"

The pushing of buttons stopped. "Peter?" Her hopeful voice came from very close; the caressing fingers gently touched the side of his face. "Pete?"

With some effort, though blessedly not as much as the first time around, he responded with a typical Peter Parker gem of eloquence: "Mmmhmmm."

Mary Jane let out a short, amazed laugh that was three fourths relief and only one fourth actual amusement. A second later, a soft kiss was pressed to his forehead, but before he had time to really enjoy it, she pulled back. "You have no idea how—I just came in, and you were… And you wouldn't wake up, so I thought about calling Dr. Richards, but… What happened?"

Peter didn't answer her for a moment, mostly because his fuzzy brain was having trouble understanding what she was asking him. "Mmm…" After a couple of seconds, he managed to get his eyes open, but they seemed to be having trouble focusing. Still, there was one thing that was fairly obvious. "Iziinii?" he asked.

"What?"

Peter made a face and tried again. "Why's it night?" he asked, making sure to speak very slowly and distinctly.

"You've been unconscious," Mary Jane answered, a barely detectable undertone of sarcasm lending a slight edge to her voice.

"Oh. Right."

"What happened, Peter?"

"Well, that depends," he said vaguely, blinking his eyes in an effort to make them work properly, "Where are we, exactly? You have my mask off, so I'm going to assume…"

"It's the place," she confirmed.

He paused, his head aching with the effort of trying to think. "Um… Then my best guess would be that I hit my head during the race--or, more likely, someone else hit my head during the race. Johnny would have taken me to the Baxter building if he'd brought me anywhere, so I guess I must have made it back here myself before passing out."

"That's not a very good guess," Mary Jane said skeptically, "Do you remember _any_ of that?"

"Well…"

"No?"

"Weirder things have happened, MJ," he said sagely. "Oh, and speaking of weird…"

"What?" she asked, sounding less than thrilled to be hearing about more oddities.

"No, it was just a dream I had when I was passed out," he explained quickly, "It was really realistic, except… I just sort of… _appeared_ in this old warehouse place, already hanging from the ceiling above this cheesy team of super villains. Venom was there, but he could talk in complete sentences." He paused. "Actually, no, saying that he used complete sentences doesn't do him justice; he used the freaking royal 'we' when referring to the glorious Venomness. There was this crazy flying lady who managed to avoid setting off my spider-sense until the last second, and…" He paused as he remembered the man in the green mask. The man who knew about Gwen, who knew that it had been Spider-man's fault. "There were some other people," he finished lamely.

Mary Jane's face was becoming clear again, clear enough that he could see her mingled bemusement at his dream recap and relief that he was talking like himself again. "That is weird. What happened?"

"Venom stomped on me,"

She winced. "Ouch."

"Yeah. " He paused, searching for some way to express how very real everything had been, how eerily solid. However real a dream seemed when he was in the middle of it, when he woke up it always faded until he could pick apart the inconsistencies and laugh at his own idiotic subconscious. But this one… "My chest still hurts where he landed on me," he said finally.

Mary Jane nodded. "I've had dreams like that. Once I dreamed that Flash head-butted me in the stomach, and when I woke up it still felt like I'd been hit with a battering ram. " She hesitated. "Can you sit up? Your aunt's going to want an explanation if we wait much longer. " Peter nodded his still-fuzzy head and gingerly started up into a sitting position; Mary Jane slipped her arm behind his shoulders for support.

Almost immediately, a piercing pain shot through his chest, making him gasp involuntarily as he collapsed backward against her arm. With some difficulty, she eased him back down. "What's wrong?" she asked, her eyes very wide. She looked like she wanted to cry but was too upset to manage it.

"My chest…" he wheezed. He couldn't seem to get enough air, and taking deep breaths made the pain worse. He was only vaguely aware that Mary Jane had lifted up his shirt to inspect his chest.

"Peter…" she said slowly.

He met her eyes, which still seemed overlarge. Her face was very pale. "What?" he asked, managing a smile, "It's just a couple of broken ribs."

"No—I mean, yes…" She bit her lip for a second. "Um…. There are… On your chest…"

"What?" Peter asked impatiently. "What's on my chest?"

Mary Jane looked like she was going to be sick. "Bruises. In the shape of footprints."

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"Stop laughing," she grumbled, glaring at Peter, now back in civilian clothes and still snickering to himself as they strolled back to the Parker house.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled, "It was just so melodramatic! Have you ever thought about giving up on the whole journalism idea and perusing an exiting career as a soap opera star instead?"

Mary Jane pulled back her hand to hit him, and then seemed to think better of it. "You're asking for more broken bones, buster."

Peter snorted with laughter, then tensed with the resulting pain in his chest. "You did it again!"

"No I didn't! And anyway, you said Venom stomped on you! It was a perfectly reasonable assumption!" she exclaimed, but the traitorous light of a distant streetlamp revealed an amused half-smile on her pretty face.

"Of course it was," Peter said, his voice reassuring to the point of crossing the line into being patronizing. With a gasp of indignation, Mary Jane hit him lightly on the shoulder, and he seized the opportunity to capture her hand. A comfortable silence fell between them; the only sounds were the light scuffling of their slow footsteps and the distant thrum of traffic.

Peter couldn't help but be relieved that they were taking the walk to his house so slowly; his chest hurt with even the shallowest breaths. Besides, it was a nice reminder that life could be simple. Peter Parker could go on a leisurely walk under the stars with his ridiculously hot girlfriend. Actually, the fact that he needed to remind himself that things could be peaceful was pretty sad--

"Hello, Spider-man." The unfamiliar voice was cold as a New York winter, with an undertone of controlled, though thoroughly malicious, amusement.

Mary Jane's grip on Peter's hand tightened as he turned toward the source of the voice, carefully keeping his expression neutral. His eyes attempted to penetrate a shadowy alley between two houses, but the only things he could make out were a pair of red eyes that glowed softly in the darkness. "I'm sorry, what?"

"And is that Mary Jane? " MJ squeezed Peter's hand even more tightly. "Goodness, my dear, the years have simply fallen away from you." There was a long pause. "Or… are you Mary Jane?"

Peter set his jaw. "I appreciate the fact that you're using the shadows to conceal yourself as you say cryptic things in a creepy voice. You obviously attended bad guy school, and I am very, very impressed. That said, I humbly request that you cut the crap."

A dry chuckle rattled through the air. "Actually, I am no longer sure that I have the right person. No matter." The eyes narrowed. "You have something I want, Spider."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "If I don't follow protocol and ask what exactly that is, can I leave?" He was uncomfortably aware that his broken ribs would make fighting considerably more difficult, and was already formulating exit strategies.

"You can certainly try." The shadowy figure stepped forward into the dim light of the street lamp, revealing a pale face with sharp, aristocratic features, framed by dark hair that fell to well past his shoulders. He also had a widow's peek and clothes that belonged in the 18th century. Peter barely had time to take it all in before his spider-sense shrieked through his skull, making him wince. "But it will do you little good."

"Dude," Peter said, his eyes watering from the pain in his head, "Have you ever heard the words 'walking' and 'cliché' in combination? You might want to look it u--" His eyes widened, and he unceremoniously flung Mary Jane over his shoulder before leaping into the air. He was just raising his arm to shoot a web-line up to the closest house when a fist rammed into the middle of his spine with what seemed like the force of a small semi.

A few excruciating seconds later, he realized that he was lying in a pile of rubble that had once been the wall of a house. He was breathing in gasps, which made his chest feel like it was about to crack open. "Well, it seems that this is going to be easier than I anticipated, "drawled a voice from above him. An impossibly strong hand closed around his throat and pulled him into the air. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Mary Jane getting shakily to her feet some meters away. _Run MJ! Run away! Go get help, Stark or something; just get out of here!_ The man smiled, and his free hand shot forward.

The world exploded. When Peter could think past the pain again, his adversary was drawing back for another punch. "No," he choked out, and thrust his legs forward sharply, hitting the man hard in the chest with both feet. The man should have released his hold on Peter's neck, or, at the very least, stumbled back a step, but he didn't even seem to feel it. Instead he relaxed his free hand and reached down calmly, almost casually, to grab Peter's right ankle. The hand tightened, and bones cracked. Peter gritted his teeth against screaming. Red eyes smiled. Then the unbreakable hand around his neck flipped and slammed Peter into the sidewalk.

Peter was pretty sure that he had at least tried to scream that time, but there just wasn't enough air. He understood suddenly that he was going to die, murdered by some psycho he'd never seen before. Then, miraculously, the hand released his neck. With a monumental effort, he managed to open his eyes.

Mary Jane, looking partially terrified but mostly furious beyond rationality, was holding onto his attacker's arm with both hands. "Stay away from him!"

"Well, this is familiar, isn't it, my dear?" asked the man, obviously amused. "But I learn from my mistakes. I'm afraid breaking you like the pretty doll you are will have to wait until I'm done with the Spider." With that, he pulled his arm away from her, seemingly without effort, and turned his attention back to Peter. "Goodbye, Spider. You were delicious." Peter tried to make his limbs move, or at least manage one last snide comment, but it was all he could do to hang onto consciousness.

"GRAAAGHHHHH!" something roared, sounding like the essence of absolute rage given a voice. The man's crimson eyes widened, but before he could turn around an enormous claw covered in orange fur shot through his chest as easily as a hole-puncher cuts through paper.

"…No," he gasped, expression disbelieving. He opened his mouth to say something else, and then abruptly collapsed in on himself in an explosion of fine white powder.

Behind where he had been standing, partially hidden in the long shadow of a house, was an enormous beast, completely covered in red hair. It was growling low in its throat, and as Peter watched through rapidly closing eyes, it turned its horned head to look at him. Then, with a sudden swell of air, it vanished. _MJ!_ Peter thought desperately, _No! MJ! I can't pass out, I have to figure out where she went, I have to… stay…_ His eyes shut, and the top grains of dust in the pile beside him began to blow away into the chill night air.


	4. The Mystery Girl

((There are no words to describe how sorry I am that this took so long. Really. I would have been much happier writing Spider-man FanFiction than writing essays about the narratives inherent in our national identity, but I didn't have any choice in the matter. Luckily, this is the last week of school and my mind, body and soul have suffered no irreparable damage, so I should be able to publish new chapters on a fairly regular basis once again! Thanks to all of the readers that have stuck with me thus far, especially to those of you who reviewed, and Happy Holidays!

Oh, and I changed the title of chapter three and fixed some details in chapter two. Just FYI.))

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_Chapter 4: The Mystery Girl_

With one hand and both feet pressed against a wall and his mask pushed up to just above his nose, the Amazing Spider-man took a slow sip of rapidly cooling coffee and shivered. Even with his thermal costume on, he was freezing. "And to think, I could be eating leftover chicken and dumplings while watching Gossip Girl reruns," he muttered to himself, then smirked. The expression was a little half hearted, mostly because it rang a little too true, CW brain candy aside. The city had been quiet ever since the Thunderbolts' bizarre antics that morning; not even a police chase or bank robbery to keep him busy.

Except…

His spider-sense had been acting up at random intervals all day, and for no apparent reason.

Except…

His police scanner indicated that despite the lack of crime, the rate of unexplained disappearances had doubled in the past 12 hours. Unofficially, of course, since the police didn't consider someone missing until 24 hours had passed, period.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He'd been running around, trying to get some clue as to what was going on, but hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of anything out of the ordinary.

Even without those disturbing little issues, he would have been jumpy. In his experience, whenever things got unusually quiet and calm, they got really, really bad shortly afterward. Something was going to happen, and he didn't want to be all the way in Queens when it did. Eating a nice, hot dinner… with a slice of pie afterward… and then a warm shower… Oh, no. He didn't want that.

A sudden streak of bright orange light in the sky a few blocks away caught his eye, and he grinned. Challenging Ol' Flame for Brains to a race would warm him up a little, at least. After finishing off his coffee with one enormous gulp, he pulled his mask back down, flipped gracefully forward off the building, and shot a web-line to the top of the next building. As he reached the low point in his swing, he neatly tossed his empty cup into a dumpster. The surprised old man who'd been about to deposit his trash stared incuriously, so, naturally, Spider-man gave him a salute as he let go of the web-line and flipped up onto the next building… just in time to see the bright figure land on a roof across the street and go dark.

He shot a line up, then curled into a tight, spinning ball as he released it and began to fall silently toward the roof. He came uncurled just in time to land in a fluid crouch just behind a man staring pensively down at the traffic below, his blond hair almost white in the moonlight. "Hiya," Spider-man said brightly. The man started violently and spun to face him, absolute panic written clearly on his handsome face. Spider-man stood. "Jeez, Johnny, coffee with Logan must have been even worse than I thought it would be."

There was a too-long pause. "Yeah," Johnny said finally. The panic had left his face, but a guarded expression had replaced it, the sort of wary look someone might have around a large, unfamiliar dog. Goose bumps that had nothing to do with cold broke out on Spider-man's arms. That expression didn't belong on Johnny Storm's face.

"Are you okay, man?" he asked, taking a concerned step forward. Johnny took a simultaneous step back, and Spider-man froze. There was another long, very uncomfortable pause. Finally, the Web-head stepped back and crossed his arms. "Okay, what did I do?" he asked flatly.

Johnny blinked. "I- You didn't—"

"Did I not thank you enough times for getting rid of Venom this morning, or what?"

"That's not—"

"Or has Richards talked you into seeing the pros of locking me up? I mean, maybe I really am a sick, twisted person who likes dressing up innocent businessmen as the Green Goblin, right? Who knows?"

"You know, I sure don't," Johnny retorted loudly, "Actually, none of us knows much about you at all! Everyone else doing what we do has let something slip about who they really are. You? I don't know anything about you. Period. You could be a serial killer under that mask."

"Wow, Einstein, I never thought of that," Spider-man said sarcastically, "And, hey, maybe Elvis is still alive, and maybe the sheer awesomeness of the Dark Knight really will initiate Jesus' second coming."

"Jokes!" Johnny exploded, his fists clenching, "Always with the jokes! Even when the situation is as serious as it could possibly—"

"Hold on," Spider-man interrupted, holding up his hands, "You've never had a problem with my jokes before, and besides, you're at least as guilty of that as I am." He paused, looking hard at the other man's face. "What the hell happened?"

Johnny took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair, and then opened his mouth, only to close it again and shake his head wordlessly. Before he could make another attempt, the sudden, jarring scream of ripping metal split the air, quickly followed by human screams and several car alarms. The street below went dark. Spider-man sighed. "Probably a car wreck. Just hold that thought for a—" A roar, too enraged to be machinery and too loud to be a Bengal tiger, echoed through the night, followed by more tearing metal and terrified screaming. "Second," he finished bleakly. He only knew one thing that could make a sound like that, and judging by the sick, frightened look on Johnny's face, he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.

"Well," Johnny said, with a pale imitation of his usual grin, "What'd'ya think?"

"I think our public awaits," Spider-man said, his voice resigned. Without waiting for Johnny's reply, he ran forward and somersaulted down onto the street below.

He briefly scanned the chaos for the source of the trouble, and found it fairly quickly; that wasn't much of a feat, considering it was over 12 feet tall. On the bright side, it wasn't green, which meant that things were already probably not as bad as he'd thought. It was difficult to get a good look at it, as it had taken out most of the nearby streetlights, but it was covered in what looked like hair and had two horn-like things sticking out of its gigantic head.

Before he could more, Johnny shot overhead like a flaming bullet. "Oh, good. You have no idea how glad I am that you're not who I thought you were," he yelled. "You are even uglier than he is, though. In fact, you sort of look like one, gigantic—" Johnny stopped talking as the creature turned around with surprising speed and sent him flying into a building with one hit of its enormous, hairy hand.

Spider-man didn't wait to see if he was all right. He shot a web-line up to one of its horns and pushed off at an angle, so that he swung neatly around the thing's head to plant both feet squarely in its face. It grunted, somehow managing to sound surprised, and stumbled back, simultaneously reaching up to knock the annoyance away from it. The annoyance, however, had already pushed off, shot another web-line at the thing's chest, and was currently speeding back towards it, feet first once again. They connected with a loud thud, and the already off-balance creature fell backward onto the ground with earthshaking results.

Spider-man stood up on the creature's chest and shook his finger patronizingly at its face. "That will teach you to pull me out of important conversations with your antics. The grownups were talking." The creature lifted its giant head and regarded him with surprisingly bright eyes. Spider-man fought the urge to take a step back; those eyes were just too intense. "Just calm down, okay?" he said, more quietly.

The creature blinked. "Grrrghhh?" it growled, sounding almost questioning.

"That's good," he said encouragingly. "Just take deep breaths…" He wasn't why this was working, or how long it would continue to work, but the longer he could stall the better. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D would actually show up and do their goddamn jobs.

The thing blinked again, more slowly. "Rrrrrg." Its eyes closed. His eyes widened, and he flipped away from it just as it began to collapse in on itself. Hair flew everywhere. As the flurry of red began to settle, it became clear that the monster was gone. In its place was… a person.

Johnny landed next to him and turned off his flame. "What the hell…" he muttered.

"And yet another Hulk moment brought to you by Cannon!" Spider-man said, a little too cheerfully, "Life as Cannon sees it." They both cautiously moved closer, and then quickly averted their eyes. The person was an unconscious girl with red hair, and she was completely naked. "Hold on," he said awkwardly. He moved to her, gently pulled her up into a standing position with one arm, and wrapped her up in webbing with the other. Now she couldn't get away, and she wouldn't freeze. Plus, he wouldn't feel like some kind of sicko; close up, it was obvious that the girl wasn't more than 16.

"Who do you think she is?" Johnny asked, looking at the girl's face.

She actually kind of reminded Spidey of one of his ex-girlfriends, but he wasn't about to say that, so he just shrugged.

Johnny let out a slow breath. "Okay. So do you want to let S.H.I.E.L.D. take care of her?"

"No!"

Johnny smiled. "Why did I even ask?" He paused briefly, "Okay. If you bring her to the Baxter Building, I'll have our people check her out."

Spider-man felt his eyebrows go up under his mask. "What about Reed?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Well I'm not going to tell him about you, now am I?"

There was another slight pause. "Thank you," Spider-man said quietly.

The other shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry for freaking out on you."

"No biggie. I was just worried about you, man."

Johnny smiled. "Get out of here before the police start showing up, idiot."

"What about the hurt—"

"Fireman," Johnny said, his voice growing bored.

Spider-man took the hint. "Okay, okay." He shot a web-line up and sped off into the chill air. He refrained from doing his usual aerial tricks, trying to hold the girl as steady as possible against him. As he swung, he couldn't help but wonder what had freaked Johnny out so much. After all, he tangled with the likes of Doctor Doom on a fairly regular basis. And won. What could mess with someone's head after they'd dealt with horrors of that magnitude?

Suddenly, his spider-sense shot through his head, and he had to fight against instinct to drop the girl. She was dangerous, somehow much more dangerous than she'd been while 12 feet tall and sporting horns… The next second, there was a strange pull, like all of the air around him was being sucked in towards him. He gasped for air, but there wasn't any, and now _he _was being pulled into his own center. _No_, he realized vaguely, _not my center, in toward her—_Every cell of his body screamed—

And he was standing in the middle of a street in what looked suspiciously like Queens, clutching the unconscious girl in his arms like she was the only thing keeping him from flying apart into a million pieces.

As soon as he remembered that breathing was an option, he began to look around. It looked as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to one of the nearby houses, and a few feet away there was a large, broken patch in the pavement that was in the rough shape of a human torso. He thought he could see a bit of dark liquid where the head would have gone. "You know," he said conversationally to the girl, "I know people who go clubbing on Friday nights." She didn't answer, but his spider-sense tingled unpleasantly. "Oh, for crying out—"

"Turn around, " said a coldly furious voice from behind him, "And then slowly put the girl down."

"Oh, no," Spider-man said haughtily, "I know how this game works, and you so did not say 'Simon says'."

Another voice spoke. There was something metallic about it. "Are you sure _that's_ not him? It sounds just like—"

"I believe he is some two feet shorter than this villain," came a third, ridiculously deep voice. Righteous anger shot through it in almost visible crackles.

"Hold on," said Spider-man slowly, "There is something very familiar about you guys…"

"Oh, no," said the second voice good naturedly, "It's not like we're famous or anything. And you shouldn't change the subject. It's rude."

"If you do not turn to face us at once, I shall smite thee into oblivion!" rumbled the third voice.

"Turn around, NOW," said the first voice.

"Okay, okay, okay." Spider-man turned around slowly, and squinted into the bright light shining into his eyes.

"Now…"

"Put the girl down, I know. Who are you people?"

"We're not answering your questions," said the first voice grimly, "You are answering ours. Put the girl—"

"No," Spider-man said flatly, "Not when I have no idea who you are."

"Okay," said the almost-robotic voice a little too calmly, "Then could you answer a question for us?"

"Shoot."

"What exactly have you done with Spider-man?"

There was a long pause. "Oh, wait," Spidey said brightly, "I know this one! I know this one! I have made absolutely sure that he will never have a decent date ever again!"

"He was just a kid." The first voice shook with anger. "What the hell have you done?"

"Calm it down, Cap," said the second voice tiredly.

"Wait, Cap?" Spider-man asked, blinking and shaking his head. "What? You're dead!"

"Is that a threat?" roared the third voice.

"What? No! This is stupid!"

"PUT THE GIRL DOWN!" bellowed the first voice.

"FINE!" He carefully lowered the girl to the ground, trying very hard not to jar her. The moment he pulled his hand away from the back of her neck, there was a sudden jolt, and… he was falling through the air in the middle of Manhattan.

What?

He snapped out of his shock induced stupor and shot a web-line up just in time to avoid a sticky end on the pavement, and then dropped back to the ground right in front of a bemused hotdog vendor. "What…" he took a deep breath. "What the hell was that?"

"How the hell should I know?" the vendor grumbled.

Spider-man looked at him for a long moment, his head still spinning, and then sighed. "That's it. Hot shower and pie it is." Without further ado, he jumped 15 feet into the air and started swinging home.


	5. For Shadow

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Chapter 5: For Shadow

May sat on the edge of her bed, digging her toes pointlessly into the carpet as she stared blankly into space. She could almost see the individual particles of dust drifting down in the dark. Her head felt fuzzy and tender, especially behind the eyes. She was too tired, a sick, shaky tired; it was the kind of tired that came with constant, wary alertness night, after night, after night. She knew that catching a half an hour of sleep here and there wasn't going to cut it for much longer, but what if she fell asleep and…

No. She forced herself to her feet and walked briskly over to Ben's crib. He was deeply asleep, his pale blue, bunny-patterned chest rising and falling softly. As she watched, he stirred fitfully, his tiny hands clenching into tight fists. Without consciously deciding to do so, May reached in to brush his cheek with the back of her index finger, which looked delicate and unnaturally white in the dark. His skin was so soft she could barely feel it. His little hands relaxed at the brief contact, and he sighed. _He probably thought I was Mom_, May thought offhandedly. Tears welled up traitorously at the stray thought, but only one got past her eyelashes; she brushed it away absently as she moved back to her bed, and then climbed under the covers. Leaning back into her pillow, she firmly closed her eyes.

It was too quiet. She was a city kid, but there was no constant hum of traffic, occasionally punctuated by a much closer car whirring past her house, no obnoxious drivers leaning on their horns, nothing. Except for the occasional rustle of leaves, it was utterly silent outside. Did she actually prefer the sounds of panic, of rioting, and the sharp smell of smoke to the more mellow sent of dust? She kind of thought she might.

Worse, she couldn't hear Ben. His breathing was close to soundless even when she was inches away; how was she supposed to know if he was still there? Even now… While she'd been thinking, pondering the eerie quiet, he could have…

Her eyes shot open as she exploded upward, kicking violently kicking at her comforter, which seemed to be clinging to her legs like an insidious tentacle, leaping out of bed, landing crouched next to the crib, and… As she straightened, she could see her little brother, still sleeping, a very slight, dreaming frown on his chubby face. She let out all of the air in her lungs in one, relieved 'whoosh', wishing that she could feel stupid for overreacting. Instead, she just felt lucky. He _could_ have been gone, and she knew it.

She reached in and levered him up, quickly cradling him against her shoulder before he could wake; he made a soft, sleepy sound and snuggled against her before becoming still again. May thought that there was some reason why children under two weren't supposed to sleep in beds, but at that point she didn't much care what it was. Trying not to jostle him, she climbed carefully back into bed, and then used her free arm to pull the covers up over both of them. He moved a little more, pressing his cherubic lips together and wrinkling his little forehead in earnest. For a moment, May thought he would wake up and start to cry, but within seconds his face was tranquil again. Sighing, she buried her face in his fine, down-soft hair and let her eyes slide shut.

Her Spider-sense tingled unpleasantly at the back of her skull, and her poor, throbbing eyes opened automatically. A second later, a loud crash, probably breaking china, sounded from the kitchen, quickly followed by a not-quite human roar filled with confusion and anger. Ben stirred against her, making soft, whimpering sounds that escaladed to an all out wail within moments.

Her expression mutinous, May climbed back out of bed and stalked out of her room, then down the hallway. A tiny part of her brain timidly suggested caution; she viciously kicked it into the back of her mind and locked it up until further notice. "Okay," she yelled, her voice cracking with barely suppressed wrath, "Who's it gonna be this time? Magneto? Green Goblin? Zombie Deadpool? Symbiote infested Hulk? I don't even fucking care anymore. Let's just get—"

She came to a sudden stop at the entryway to the kitchen, looking around with eyes that seemed to buzz in their sockets. Except for a mug, which lay broken next to the sink, everything was as she'd left it. "This over with," she finished, her voice flat. She stared at the mug for a few seconds. It had been one of her mother's favorites, white and covered with Shakespearean insults in various fonts and sizes. From where she was standing, she could see a chunk of porcelain that, even in the dark, boldly proclaimed, 'Idol of idiot worshippers.'

Finally she turned around, glaring into the dark of the house. There wasn't any point in trying to turn on the lights; the power had been out for weeks. "Of course. That would be too easy, right? We have to go through the formalities. First, I have to wander around, being confused and frightened, saying, 'Hello?' and 'Is anyone there?'" She moved into the living room, making no effort to be quiet or stealthy. "And then you pop out, and I scream, and you kill me as slowly and messily as possible. Am I close so fa—" May froze, her breath hitching in her chest as she came to a sudden, sickening realization. She couldn't hear Ben. He had been crying, but she couldn't hear him.

She was spinning back toward her room before she really understood what that probably meant, and then sprinting because the ceiling was too low for jumps or leaps. She couldn't think. She was too ill to think. Her stomach was in knots. Her feet made no sound on the carpet, but the thunderous sound of her heartbeat pounded in her temples like some kind of terrible drum. The door to her room loomed closer and closer, but at the same time it seemed to be drifting away from her. _Oh, no you don't_, she mentally snarled at it as she reached out for the doorframe, gripped it, and used it to swing herself up, around, and into the room.

Ben let out a soft, contented little coo as she landed, and even as she got up and out of her crouch, she was reaching for him. Most of the sick, jittery feelings deserted her as she stretched out to touch his hair. _God, what would I have done?_

"Don't wake him up."

Her fingers flinched back from the child's head. There was someone right behind her, but her spider-sense hadn't seen fit to inform her of that little tidbit. Great. _If it's even remotely possible that he can't be detected by your spider-sense, you should be extremely careful, _she told herself, _This is the type of thing that could get you kill--_ "Gosh, I always make a point of obeying the orders of the random people who appear in my house in the middle of the night." It took her a second to realize that the smart-ass comment had come from her mouth. _Autopilot_, she thought wryly, _Well, might as well finish up, now. _"I would hate to be rude."

There was a pause, her eyes caught a slight shift in the darkness, and her spider-sense sang lightly. Okay, so it _was_ working. "Mary Jane," he said. The inflection, or lack there of, in those words made May's skin prickle. It sounded dead, completely empty of emotion. There was another beat of silence, "Wait... No. Your hair… Your hair is wrong." The deadness was gone, replaced by confusion. "Who…"

There was something… off about that voice still, something less obvious that lack of emotion, but May couldn't put her finger on it. "May Parker," she said slowly, "Mary Jane Watson is my Mother."

"Moth—_Parker_?" The confusion was more pronounced now, along with the something wrong. She could have almost sworn that the voice had… bubbled.

"Yeah. Who the hell are you?" She waited for a split second, and then changed her mind. "Actually, you know what, scratch that. I don't care. Get out of my house, or I'll throw you out."

"I saw you come in," the voice said softly, too softly for her to be able to tell for certain if she'd been correct about it bubbling, but with a strange, fevered intensity, "How can you move like that? Who is your father?"

May bristled. "Alright. Throwing you out it is." She started toward the spot where she'd seen movement; the voice was too soft and strange to pinpoint.

"Stop! M-May." He stumbled slightly over her name. "I don't want—I never wanted—"

"Then get out," May growled. Her Spider-sense was still, so he wasn't dangerous, but she didn't care.

"Please, I have to know—"

"You came into my house unintentionally," said May, rage making her voice tremble. Her shaking hands clenched and unclenched eagerly. She was no longer certain she wanted him to leave; she wanted—no, needed—someone to beat on, and really had for a long time. Nonetheless, she continued. "That is the only reason I haven't flattened you. Get out."

"I have to know if Peter Parker was your father!" The voice's growing edge of desperation, tinged with terrible anger and sadness, also lent it more volume, enough for her to hear the slight gurgling clearly, as well as an odd, two toned quality.

"You have a symbiote bonded to you, don't you?" She asked, her voice suddenly and terribly quiet. She felt that she was in the center of a moment of perfect clarity and stillness; even the slight tremors in her muscles that came with too-little sleep were gone. She waited for an answer, but none came. That was answer enough. "And you said 'I', not 'we'."

"Please—"

"Which means," May continued, without any indication that she'd heard his interjection, "That I would probably be doing whichever Universe you come from a favor by getting rid of you."

"May, I am—I mean, I was P—" The air rippled, and he stopped talking. May blinked, and then slowly, reluctantly, let herself to relax.

There was a slight but horribly sudden jolt, almost like jerking awake out of a light sleep. Her eyes flinched shut, stung by a sudden excess of bright light. Even as they closed, she realized what this had to mean. "Oh, no." She forced them open again, forced them to adjust as she squinted around.

She was standing in the middle of a deserted street, one she knew. It could have been her world, but even without the sudden time change, she would have known it for what it was. "No." She looked around frantically, her heart fluttering wildly. Her searching eyes landed on a billboard. In large, yellow letters, it proclaimed, 'Human Registration—It's for your protection'. Hot, terrified tears spilled over her eyelashes before she realized they were there. "No!" she sobbed.

Horrible images flashed before her eyes, images of Ben trying to get out of bed, trying to find her, calling for her, crying, and then gradually growing weak… Slowly, she fell to her knees in the middle of the empty road, and then allowed herself to topple over completely. "Please!" she screamed to the pavement, "He's just a baby! I can't leave him… He doesn't…He'll die-- He can't… Oh God!" She couldn't manage any more words, or even coherent thoughts. Helpless misery washed over her in a wave, and she surrendered to it, crying for what seemed like decades, until her chest ached and welcome darkness swept in from the edges of her vision to take everything away.


End file.
